VOL. XV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 18ft 



in consequence of the attacks themselves, but also of her very great abstemi- 

 ousness.* About a month before her death there happened one of these he- 

 morrhages, to a degree which threatened to prove fatal ; it was however with 

 great difficulty stopped ; after which there succeeded such an alleviation of her 

 complaints, that she flattered herself with being entirely out of danger. The 

 very day before she died there came on another of these hemorrhages, which 

 was suppressed at the beginning by the remedies employed for that purpose ; so 

 that she again thought herself safe. But in the evening of the same day she 

 was suddenly seized with a violent head ach, accompanied with some faltering 

 of speech. A surgeon was sent for to bleed her, but before he arrived she ex- 

 pired, viz. within half an hour from the attack. 



On opening the body no scirrhosity of the liver appeared (as had been sus- 

 pected by Dr. Mayerne, and other celebrated physicians, who had attended her 

 some years before) but this yiscus was of a larger size than natural. There was 

 no bile in the gall-bladder (which was much contracted) ; but it contained ] 4 

 calculi, most of which were equal to a pea, but 2 or 3 of them were rather 

 larger. They were round and somewhat flatted, of a smooth surface, and dark 

 colour, resembling bezoars, after they had been some time exposed to the air, 

 but at first view looking like aloetic pills. They were yellowish in the inside, 

 with some degree of hollowness in the centre, and they easily crumbled between 

 the fingers. The spleen, like the liver, was larger than natural. No morbid 

 appearances were observed in the stomach, pancreas, mesenteric glands, or 

 omentum. The kidneys were rather less firm than usual. The uterus exhibited 

 nothing preternatural. 



In the right side of the thorax a portion of the lungs, 4 fingers breadth, 

 adhered firmly to the pleura, and in various places, especially at the margins of 

 the lobes, the lungs appeared of a black or livid hue, which showed that they 

 approached to a state of sphacelation. 



The heart was sound, and there was a considerable quantity of fat at its basis, 

 although the rest of the body was greatly emaciated. 



It was on opening the head that the cause of this sudden death became evi- 

 dent; for the blood-vessels that go to the membranes on the right lobe of the 

 brain were found remarkably turgid ; and on dissecting them (the membranes) 

 from that side of the brain, which was the side of the head the patient com- 

 plained of at the moment of her attack, there flowed out a large quantity serosi 

 sanguinis, which being removed, and an incision made into the substance of 

 the brain, there came into view a large clot of blood, which weighed about 



• In a subsequent part of the narrative the author mentions, that the patient denied herself a 

 sufficiency of food, " ne serapbicis fruitionibus poneretur obex." 

 VOL. III. B B 



